On working withSteven Spielberg: “One day, we were on set waiting on something. Steven’s sitting there on the edge of the bed, and he’s got his headset on and his little monitor, and he’s just looking around, waiting, and he looks at me and he goes, ‘It’s not the take that takes the time to take a take, it’s the time between the takes that takes the time to take a take.’ I make him repeat that one, slowly, and he bursts out laughing. Steven goes—so humbly, by the way—‘Yeah, I made that up on Jaws.’”

On getting his break in 2012′s Mud: “I would always hear the same thing: ‘This kid has a superstrong Southern accent.’ ‘Never heard of him.’ I never booked one job in three years, and then Mud came around, and it was like, ‘All right.’”

On his upcoming virtual reality company, Aether Inc.: “I was completely obsessed with VR before I even heard about Ready Player One, or even knew that Steven was doing a film. So when the script came around and I had the opportunity to audition for it, I was like, ‘Hoooly s–t. This is going to be huge!’”